Attracting Women to Game Development - Day 3
Roundtable Discussion
Sande Chen and Michelle Sorger
(NOTE: I missed Day 2 of this roundtable.)
(F = Female Speaker, M = Male Speaker)
F. One thing is to address the changing needs of women. Now I won't go to a company that doesn't accommodate my life. A good maternity leave policy, for example. I need special concessions. And we need to get rid of stereotypes about pregnant women.
F. I have noticed that women work in the HR of many companies. How empathic are they aren't they? Why is there no interest in bringing more women into those companies?
M. My wife is on a committee...they pinpointed there's a loss at the post graduate levels of education. There are equal numbers of women and men at undergraduate levels, but that falls off in the graduate levels. Also, there is a better gender mix among the CA's (GDC conference associates) than among the general attendees.
F. We need to give women role models. Icons.
M. I'm not aware of specific statistics, but I think salaries have not balanced out. That would be a way to retain women.
Q. How do you treat your female employees?
M. I don't treat my employees like males or females. I treat them as employees. A common level of respect. When time off is needed, time off is given, whatever it's for.
Q. What kinds of games do women play?
F. The #1 thing women who play games want is more collaborative play options. I want to play a game without having to kill the other person. I want "let's go through the game together and play."
M. One of the reasons it doesn't crop up is because collaborative options are more expensive to build in. Publishers aren't yet convinced that doing so will lead to more sales. A study showed more females expressing a preference for 2 play styles that aren't typical in the industry: 1) not looking to come up against a heavy challenge; 2) manager-style. We didn't look in terms of gender. There are also men that don't get their styles represented. (Survey Results: www.ihobo.com )
Q. Should women be more vocal about what they want to play?
M. Yes.
M. Talking about cooperative gaming, it's not just gender specific. The mod community will often create a collaborative mode.
F. One thing that might help...there was an article by a company that makes games for children...they always have children review their games. Gamer magazine reviews are done by the wrong audience.
F. A couple months ago I went to LA...at a panel...talking about how the industry is changing and consolidating. Giant conglomerates are dominating. They saw women's content in games, what women might want, as a small demographic. Because games have become so expensive to make, and have such a short shelf life, and because the game industry has no ancillary profit center (meaning they don't have extensive licensing and sub-licensing). These companies are interested in a profit-center. Maybe women's content games should be created with ancillary profit-centers.
M. For the next generation games...polymorphic content will be important. Toys, books, action figures, movies. Content is moving that way. As for women-focus content, I don't think that's the only way to reach women. Women play Halo (it's Julia Roberts favorite game). Not just gender-specific content. You can pitch your content a different way. Cooperative play was a given with Halo. Maybe more market research needs to be done.
F. They did an experiment where they added (something)...it don't help sales...it didn't address the legacy of making men's games or women's games. We tried to do a women's soccer game, and there was no interest. There's better ways to make games than research per se.
F. There's a lot of what women do want in games, but it's what I don't want that affects the games I buy. Let women make the games. We need women in lead design positions.
F. Nobody knew your game for women was out there (referring to the women's soccer game). One of the problems is the marketing/ads only preach to the choir. They advertise in magazines read by gamers. I don't go into software stores, but Ill buy something from Borders. Move the message into some place I want to go.
M. Alternative retail channels should be considered Women don't want to go into computer game stores.
M. I think that has a lot to do with the size of the market.
M. An excellent example of a game that appeals to both was Kings Quest 4. That game appealed to everyone.
F. I know that adventure games were really popular with women. That genre has died.
F. I don't know, might be coming in next generation games. Once you can attract some of our female cultural icons to be in a game, you might have something.
M. There are now live actors doing voiceovers.
F. I want to talk about making games for women. A game that says "This is for you", I would feel like I was being babied. I want stuff that is of interest to me. Community games, like Virtual Life.
M. That's our point. It's more about diversifying the play styles than about targeting women specifically. Cast the net wider.
F. The Sims seemed to be split between genders. The knowledge of how to do it exists.
Q. How do you think that having women on your team will make you a more productive team? It's often not how you are on your own, but how you interact with the team.
M. Some of the smoothest projects I've worked on had women producers. Don't know if that was why. She wouldn't freak out at crunches. Handled things more calmly and more organized and tried to keep everyone on the same page.
F. I can't say I've worked on a team without a woman. (laughter) I've worked with women who were jerks, and women who were wonderful. The differences...well...the breasts animated better. I would comment if I thought something moved bizarrely. In one game, if a man and woman were going to have sex on a couch, I had the woman go first to the couch. Seemed less slimy.
M. Individual personality...random...women do look at things differently.
F. I've been in some design sessions...unless there's a group commitment, the ideas don't get in the game. With only 1 girl in a group, it can be hard to get something added. You don't get the support of the team members.
F. I think when you have a breakaway hit that's female-oriented it will prove to the publishers that those games are worth producing. Need to identify where the female fan base is.
M. What % of TV programming is gender targeted?
F. It breaks down much more by genre. Action to men, for example.
M. Does anyone know of any advertising of games targeted at women?
M. Word of mouth and social experience seem to be most of it. I've never met a woman who attributed their gameplaying to advertising.
F. Are you aiming at 35 yr old women? Or 9 year old girls? More targeted at girls than at women.
M. Reality TV being so popular/equally popular with women and men. Survivor has a game element that is competitive and also a social dynamic.
F. I was a tester. The games that I enjoyed were multiplayer. I liked beating guys. And I liked games that had comedic content. The Sims I enjoyed because they were funny/quirky.
F. 40% of MMORPG players are women.
M. In my experience, what seems to be important/strike a chord is that many games have only 1-dimensional characters. It's rare to see deep characters.
F. Are there games marketed at 9 year old boys?
M. Yes. Pretty much everywhere. Not so much with the girls that I've seen.
F. I've seen far fewer ads for girl games during Saturday morning cartoons. Except for Leappad. I do think a lot of games are being made for girls. What happens when you get older than that?
F. My daughter downloads Real games all the time.
M. I worked on a hockey game targeted at teenage boys. We never saw an ad for it because we had no marketing spent. Depending on your genre you're not going to get the advertising budget.
F. My experience playing games and women playing my games: women like to build and develop things. Build and develop things, and relationships. This is not exclusively split along gender lines. Now I have 15 minutes I can play, so I look for games that fit in that timeslot.
M. A game that we worked on targeting young girls, the publisher/platform licensor insisted on placing more challenging elements into the game. They repeatedly sent back the game until more competitive elements were added to the game. We didn't think they were appropriate. They didn't understand the needs of the audience.
M. Why spend a lot of money on advertising on a place where there's no market? But there are so many women buying games. Maybe the publishers haven't realized that there's a huge market already available. There are games available and they aren't being advertised.
M. It's a hit-driven business. It's a balancing act. We do stuff in new genres and try things. Risks cost money. It takes a lot of money to create a new genre. Shots are being taken. You might not see them because they fail. Can't put all your eggs in one basket.
F. There's a legacy of uninteresting games. I want more complex choices, less killing.
M. Hockey players are far outnumbered by the women. So this market can't be that small and ignorable.
M. We didn't have any women in our college club and none of the guys noticed that. We tried to attract women with a "women's only night". Halo 2 proved to be the most popular game among the women. It may not take a different game, maybe it just needs a different space.
F. I want to challenge the notion that some games are for women. If you look at the games that are in the household and the games played by women in those households, you'll see that women are playing those games (like Madden Football). The assumption that women only like certain types of games is not born out by the facts. Create more complex advertising structures so that a) they don't chase women away and b)...(I lost it)...
M. I find it interesting that women play certain games that are in the household. But they aren't purchasing those games.
F. It's a question of Vegas odds. You like to play where you know you're going to win. You're going to have your hits. If you've seen a game ad then it was targeted to women.
F. I've seen game ads in gamer magazines left in the bathroom at work. I wouldn't see them otherwise.
F. Maybe they need a different focus in all of their advertising. I'm interested in a lot of things guys are, but there's usually something in there that slaps me in the face. In online gambling, women are a growing group. They don't have to deal with the negative side effects of being at a casino.
M. I'm heading up a game university program and looking for pointers to attract women to the course.
M. Target the freshmen. Make it clear that it's not just geeky guys.
M. You have to do it earlier than that. At the college level, students are already picking their majors.
F. If you have an information session, you can have more female staff there to be role models.
M. I have no female staff in the department.
F. I don't think it's just targeting women earlier and earlier. I got in as a Junior in college. I find it offputting that people tell me I should've started earlier. There is a lot of stuff in liberal arts that could go into game design.
M. We don't accept anyone into the game program unless they already have experience in programming or art. If you have a normal 4-year degree no reason you can't go into gaming.
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